This setting demands a professional decision on exposure. It isn't a simple thing here.

Well, I guess I'm confused then. In addition to using a reflector, or perhaps a ring flash unit, what kind of decision could I have made for my exposure settings that would have enabled me to capture the maximum detail in both highlight and shadow areas?

I mean, I think I captured the bright areas pretty well but I know that I wanted more from the bumblebee's dark body. Maybe I should stop trying to analyze too deeply and be happy with what I got.

DOF is a different story. I know that I didn't get as much from that as I wanted.

I'll reply to myself on this one as a thought just came to me. Eric mentioned that I might have taken two exposures - one exposed for the shadow areas and one exposed for the highlights, using raw mode and combining in post-processing. It sounds good but in reality it would have been difficult as there would have been problems getting the two photos to align well (flower was moving, spider too periodically).

Julie, thanks. I'd love to visit Australia one of these years but the poisonous snakes, crocs/alligators, poisonous other things don't exactly excite me. But I'd gladly tolerate them for the chance to visit :-)

You know those sort of comments really make me laugh cause Aussies fear America for bears, coyote and rattle snakes and scorpions.

so far Ive never seen a croc in the wild, they are only in a few areas. I see snakes in summer on the road when I drive out in the country areas on my run, I always avoid running them over because they are just living their lives. As for spiders, well the funnel web is only over in the eastern states and I live in the west and I dont remember the last time someone died from a bite in Australia. We do have sharks and the odd attack is scary but the most dangerous animal we have is the kangaroo. More people die as a result of car crashes caused by them. I hit one a couple of months ago in my work van and managed to stay on the road but the van had $5000 damage!! Unfortunately a young couple died here recently whena kangaroo jumped out in from of them, they hit it then bounced into the path of a huge truck. The driver could not do anything. the truck driver was injured when the truck ended up in the river trying to avoid the couple in the car.

so as you can see, its the cute cuddly looking animals that are dangerous.

well...that is true, and the smarter photographer way to do it, geoff...

but by using RAW eric meant to converttwo to TIFF's, one for the shadows (using a raw converter,you should be able to compensate exposure), and one for the highlights...and then all you need to do, is take then into photoshop, and erase the areas that are too dark in the highlights layer and then the shadow layer will show through....

it's easy that way...but you have to shoot in raw, which means you get about a 1/4 to an 1/8 the amount of pictures you normally would get one the card....

Julie, I suppose the real answer is that it's the dangers that you are not familiar with that scare you the most. So, for Americans in Australia, it's the stuff I mentioned. For Australians in America, it's the stuff you mentioned.

Now, in America, the coyotes aren't one bit dangerous. They are very wary and run off before you even notice they are there most of the time. You hear them alot though. The bears are not often seen in most areas (Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier Park are somewhat the exceptions there because in the past people used to feed them). Rattlesnakes can be dangerous but most people never ever encounter them.

Kangaroos in Australia sound like deer in the US - people often hit them here with the resulting damage to vehicle, deer, and sometimes people.

but by using RAW eric meant to converttwo to TIFF's, one for the shadows (using a raw converter,you should be able to compensate exposure), and one for the highlights...and then all you need to do, is take then into photoshop, and erase the areas that are too dark in the highlights layer and then the shadow layer will show through....

It's a process I haven't tried out yet, vito. I can see that it would definitely be worth experimenting with. I'll make sure that this is on my todo list.

The contrast in colors really grabs your eye. I have never seen a spider like that, and hope I never do. What a tough exposure black and white, it is like trying to get a good picture of a stilt, tough. But you did an excellent job, I think the exposuremay beas good as is possible with the color contrasts of the shot.

You must be very observant to have even noticed this opportunity. Thanks for sharing, keep em coming!!

Thanks, zoomn! I'm not in love with spiders either and this did shock me when I first came upon the scene. But I couldn't pass up the photo opportunity and probably had my fingers within an inch or two of the spider and bumblebee. While I was taking the pictures I had other bumblebees zooming by a few inches from my head. My philosophy has always been "if you don't bother them, they won't bother you", but I've still been surprised in the past :-)

I was deliberately looking for macro photo ops among the flowers but finding this particular circumstance really was luck. Perhaps this will set me on a mission - finding as many varied situations in which spiders are eating their prey, and documenting those situations in photographs...